Part 46 (1/2)

He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again almost at once, followed by a green-ap.r.o.ned porter carrying his luggage.

”I looked into Mangles's salon,” he said to Wanda, when he was seated beside her again. ”He remains here alone. The ladies have already gone.

They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany. He is no fool--that Mangles. But this morning he is dumb. He would say nothing.”

At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men.

He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.

”They know,” he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the Austrian railway carriage. ”They all know. Look at their stupid, perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah!

what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!”

”Or a grin,” he added, after a long pause, ”that pa.s.ses for one.”

x.x.xIV

FOR ANOTHER TIME

The thaw came that afternoon. Shortly before sunset the rain set in; the persistent, splas.h.i.+ng, cold rain that drives northward from the Carpathians. In a few hours the roads would be impa.s.sable. The dawn would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.

There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water. They are only pa.s.sable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard and polished track.

Along the middle road--which is the worst and the least frequented--a number of carts made their way soon after eight o'clock at night. The road is not only unmade, but is neglected and allowed to fall into such deep ruts and puddles as to make it almost impa.s.sable. It is bordered on either side by trees and a deep ditch. In the late summer it is used for the transit of the hay which is grown on the low-lying land. In winter it is the shortest road to Wilanow. In spring and autumn it is not used at all.

It was raining hard now, and the wind hummed drearily through the pollarded trees. Each of the four carts was dragged by three horses, harnessed abreast in the Russian fas.h.i.+on. They were the ordinary hay-carts of the country, to be encountered at any time on the more frequented road nearer to the hills, carrying produce to the city. The carts were going towards the city now, but they were empty.

Fifty yards in front of the caravan a man splashed along through the standing water, his head bent to the rain. It was Kosmaroff. He was in his working clothes, and the rain had glued his garments to his spare limbs. He walked with long strides, heedless of where he set his feet.

He had reached that stage of wetness where whole water could scarcely have made him wetter. Or else he had such business in hand that mere outward things were of no account. Every now and then he turned his head, half impatiently, to make sure that the carts were following him.

The wheels made no sound on the wet sand, but the heavy wood-work of the carts groaned and creaked as they rolled clumsily in the deep ruts.

At the cross-ways, where the shorter runs at right angles into the larger Wilanow road, Kosmaroff found a man waiting for him, on horseback, under the shadow of the trees, which are larger here. The horseman was riding slowly towards him from the town, and led a spare horse. He was in a rough peasant's overcoat of a dirty white cloth, drawn in at the waist, and split from heel to band, for use in the saddle. They wear such coats still in Poland and Galicia.

Kosmaroff gave a little cough. There is nothing so unmistakable as a man's trick of coughing. The horseman pulled up at once.

”You are punctual,” he said. ”I was nearly asleep in the saddle.”

And the voice was that of Prince Martin Bukaty. He had another coat such as he was wearing thrown across the saddle in front of him, and he leaned forward to hand it down to Kosmaroff.

”You are not cold?” he asked.

”No; I feel as if I should never be cold again.”

”That is good. Put on your coat quickly. You must not catch a chill. You must take care of yourself.”

”So must you,” answered Kosmaroff, with a little laugh.

Though one was dark and the other fair, there was a subtle resemblance between these two men which lay, perhaps, more in gesture and limb than in face. There also existed between them a certain sympathy which the French call _camaraderie_, which was not the outcome of a long friends.h.i.+p. Far back in the days of Poland's greatness they must have had a common ancestor. In the age of chivalry some dark, spare knight, with royal blood in his veins, had perhaps fallen in love with one of the fair Bukatys, whose women had always been beautiful, and their men always reckless.

Kosmaroff climbed into the saddle, and they stood side by side, waiting for the carts to come up. Martin's horse began to whinny at the sound of approaching hoofs, when its rider leaned forward in the saddle and struck it fiercely on the side of its great Roman nose, which sounded hollow, like a drum.